Doctor Who Unbound - The Viking Wanderer
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: What if someone re-wrote Hiccup's life to something a little bit different? (Full Fathom Five)


Disclaimer - I own neither Doctor Who or How to Train Your Dragon.

The Doctor in this story comes from the Big Finish audio drama 'Full Fathom Five,' set in a parallel universe where the Doctor believed the ends justified the means, and never hesitated to commit murder if he considered the moves to be justified. Full Fathom Five's Doctor was voiced by the brilliant David Collings, who certainly brought a sardonic and callous feel to the character.

Enjoy and please drop me some feedback.

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The Viking Wanderer.

While he stood in the console room of the TARDIS seeing through the scanner the raid that was taking place while the TARDIS was hovering far above the atmosphere and beyond the sight of the fighters below, the Doctor considered the mixed feelings he'd had when he had checked this point in history. In all of his journeys through Earth's history, he had never imagined _dragons were real. _

He had heard about dragons of course over the centuries, heard of many legends and tales about them, but now he could see that each and every single one of them was exaggerated. There was nothing magical about the dragons, they were just another life form on Earth which had evolved much like everything else, but truthfully the Doctor found he actually preferred this depiction of the dragon than in any of the tales he had read and heard over the centuries he had been coming to Earth, although it did take a bit of the fun out of the stories somehow.

He hadn't really been looking for the dragons. He had simply been travelling up and down Earth's timeline, hoping to find an event he had never visited before to just visit before he discovered the existence of the dragons.

The Doctor had no way of knowing if the dragons were yet another example of the Time Lord's absence having an effect on history which had not happened before they were gone or if he had just never noticed it before in his previous lives - that was possible since he hadn't exactly visited _every _moment of Earth's history.

His curiosity had gotten the better of him so he had begun travelling along Earth's timeline. Once he had it wasn't long before he found out about the Viking-Dragon war, among other conflicts, but it was the Viking war with the dragons which was incredibly fascinating.

On the surface the war wasn't that spectacular - aside from one or two battles, the fighting followed the same predictable pattern; the dragons would raid the Viking villages and steal as much food as they could carry and take it all to the dragon nest where it would be devoured by the Queen, who would eat any dragon if they didn't bring back enough or defied its will. The Vikings would fight back. They would send fleets of ships to hunt down the dragon nest, but because the nest was located behind a fog bank which surrounded it, the Vikings never arrived. So many lives were lost to the hunts, which wasn't helped because Dragon Island (you had to give humans marks out of a hundred for the imagination they put into the names of the places they encountered) was surrounded by pillars of rocks which made everything more treacherous.

On the islands, new generations of Viking youths would be trained in how to fight and fend off the dragons, and on and on it would go. The Doctor may not have been a soldier, but he could see enough to tell there was no way the Vikings would be able to fight the dragons off, so that made what one young Viking boy did seem incredible.

As the Doctor watched the life of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, he quickly saw that the boy was a kindred spirit. The boy was an easy target for the other children on Berk, the home of the Hairy Hooligan tribe, who were much more physically stronger than Hiccup was, but the boy had traits that went above the others, and the Doctor was impressed by the boy's tenacity and his intellect.

But as the Doctor watched the boy's timeline unfold he could see that Hiccup was wasted on Berk.

When the timeline unfolded and the Doctor saw how the boy was preparing to leave his tribe behind simply because he had been chosen, the Time Lord could see that Hiccup had been prepared to travel and gather knowledge. It wasn't until that Viking girl had appeared that the plans changed forever, which was a pity as far as the Doctor was concerned because he himself knew about the drive to travel, to explore.

That was one of the reasons why he had stolen his TARDIS in the first place in order to leave his home planet.

He had become so bored with the lifestyle he'd had among the other Time Lords, and he could see that Hiccup was far from happy on Berk.

And from that particular event, Hiccup's plans changed and he destroyed that dragon, but he could have left after his injury had been healed with the full knowledge of the tribe. But he didn't.

Hiccup had so much potential, but he was wasted completely on Berk. Oh, Hiccup had found a niche on the island as Vikings accepted the dragons into their lives after he had destroyed the Queen dragon the Hooligans would soon refer to as the 'Red Death,' and yet as he watched Hiccup's timeline unfold the Doctor could not help but think to himself how much of it was off.

In the past, the Doctor wouldn't really care or even see a reason why he should meddle in the developing life of a young Viking boy who had changed the whole way of life for a warring culture. But now he saw there was ample reason for him to meddle in the life of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III.

Yes, by meddling he would completely change the boy's life, but surely things would be better?

Not only would Hiccup at last grow as a person, free from the confines of a minuscule little spec on Earth's surface but if he travelled around there was the definite possibility he would have adventures which would have repercussions for years to come.

The Monk may have had a similar attitude and philosophy towards how he had interfered with the flow of history, but the Doctor could see some positive benefits a version of Hiccup who had left Berk as he had originally meant to do when Astrid Hofferson cornered him in the cove where he and his dragon had been using as a secret place would have.

Hiccup wanted to see more of the world, and this would come after riding on Toothless' back and seeing the world from the point of view of a dragon. Once he had seen that, he would be open to so many possibilities but when the Doctor had come to that decision he couldn't help but shake his head at how much of a 'play' this whole thing was.

For a start as he watched the timeline unfold around the final days of the Viking-Dragon war, the Doctor had to watch as Hiccup's father, Chief Stoick 'The Vast' Haddock, announced a plan to try to get to the nest and finally destroy it. The Doctor had watched as the Vikings among the tribe, trained and hardened warriors, voiced their reluctance and he couldn't blame them; they knew, all of them including Stoick, the plan was doomed to fail.

Even if they could travel through the fog and the mist surrounding the nest, the Viking longships still had to contend with the stone pillars, and the sailors wouldn't even know they were there until it was too late to alter their course. And then, as if that was not bad enough, the Vikings would have to deal with the dragons appearing out of no-where.

But after seeing the way Stoick dismissed the concerns of the other warriors as though it were nothing to worry themselves about, the Doctor could not help but sneer. What worried him the most was the fact the Vikings hadn't considered _what _the dragons might actually do if their nest was destroyed, but the Time Lord quickly came up with some ideas that would not be good for Berk.

His disdain for the Viking chief only grew when Stoick's voiced boomed over the scanner's audio circuits after looking shrewdly about the warriors as they made one collectively poor excuse after another which belied what the Time Lord had seen over the scanner, "_Alright. Those who stay will look after Hiccup."_

The Doctor could only shake his head at how pathetic the humans were when they instantly volunteered to leave on the hunt, and he couldn't help but pity Hiccup for his father's nonchalant manipulations. While the boys…enthusiasm towards helping his tribe was commendable from a certain point since he desperately wanted to fit in which made sense given how everyone fought for position and they wanted to be both seen and heard as well as respected by everyone who knew them, the Doctor could see why the tribe would try to mitigate it since Hiccup did cause damage a few times to the village, but that did not excuse what they did to try to discourage the boy from trying to help, and certainly not how Stoick used his son's poor image among everyone to manipulate them into going out with them on those wasteful hunts.

He could also understand Stoick to a degree after seeing how the man had 'lost' his wife.

Without Valka's influence and input, Stoick had been left to flounder, but he couldn't stand to look at his son not because he was ashamed though that had come much later, it was because of how much Hiccup himself had taken after his mother and Stoick did not like to be reminded of it.

Then again, Valka was hardly an innocent and the Doctor could not work out why the woman had not bothered to come to Berk to see what had become of her son; she didn't even need to speak to him, just watch him. And then she would have known how empty her decisions were to keep away.

The Doctor had no intention of altering events to make the two meet. As he studied the screen, once more looking at the unfolding timeline, the Doctor wondered how he could help Hiccup and change his life without the Viking boy knowing about it, but at the same time, he couldn't help but notice just how few Vikings there were who looked like they were in their twenties. Sure, there were a few who looked like they were in their thirties, but the Doctor had never been good at recognising how old humans were since it was virtually impossible for one Time Lord to know how old another was based on physical appearance alone without touching their minds; look at his first incarnation and compare it with his own. His first incarnation had the body of an old man, and his current self looked to be in his middle age, near his fifties or so.

Studying the screen, the Doctor realised how he could help Hiccup. He rewound the data-stream so he could see what Hiccup did when he was escorted home by his blacksmith mentor, Gobber the Belch the Doctor believed him to be named. He watched as the boy sneaked out of the house from the back door and he laughed, the sound echoing around the console room.

_Rassilon, this boy is spunky, _the Doctor thought to himself with a smile, and he became even more determined to help the boy in any way he could. But at that point, the Doctor also decided to begin his changes and there was only one way he could do that.

Designing history was expressly forbidden by the Time Lords, but the Designer profession still remained and was still practiced even to this day; one of the reasons it had been banned was the Designers who came from races, not from Gallifrey who had no knowledge of the dangers of what they were doing, but the Doctor knew the Time Lords had done it to mostly keep the knowledge of how to manipulate history to themselves. To a non-Time Lord it was incredibly difficult to meddle in history; one way was to do what the Monk did in 1066 - just go to a time zone and forcibly change the timeline there, but truthfully the best way to do it was to use the Power of Creation to force the change by rewriting the Web of Time. An almost mystical change and all Time Lords who had access to a TARDIS could do it.

The Doctor had no problem with how he Designed history so Hiccup, instead of just heading straight into the woods to look for the dragon he snagged with that bola launcher (the Doctor had to admit it was an intriguing and impressive piece of work, especially for that time period where machinery was virtually non-existent), would head down into the village, and listen to what his father said.

When the Doctor was finished he watched as the newly altered timeline played out. The Doctor did feel slightly bad when he saw how Hiccup looked upset when he heard what his father said and how Stoick had basically manipulated the other Vikings into doing what he wanted by using Hiccup as a means to get what he wanted them to do. But in the Doctor's mind, it was a good thing because it was the first change to making things different and better.

Once Hiccup had seen what his father had done, the rest should be obvious. From what he had learnt and gathered about Hiccup, the Doctor knew without a doubt the boy did not know what his father did to unite the Vikings against the dragons and that he did not know that Stoick had used the threat anyone who stayed would have to look after him.

Hiccup would see that he had no place on Berk, or in the Hooligan tribe.

His father would never be proud of him.

As he watched Hiccup venture into the forest to find that dragon he had injured during the raid, the Doctor could tell that the boy was no longer prepared to kill the Night Fury (he was becoming increasingly interested in the different types of dragons that seemed to thrive in different parts of the world, and he decided to do a study on them as soon as he could) for his tribe.

He was planning on doing it for himself, and after what he had heard even if he had been manipulated, the Doctor couldn't say he blamed the boy all that much.

The most interesting part was when the Doctor watched as Hiccup came upon the Night Fury, and was fully prepared to prove to himself that he could kill a dragon.

Not for the tribe - no, they'd had their chance - Hiccup was doing it for himself, but when the time came the boy didn't do it although the Doctor made sure of it by Designing the timeline to ensure nothing changed, and that Hiccup would instead befriend the dragon slowly over a period of a couple of weeks.

As the weeks went by, the Doctor made sure nothing changed. Hiccup would spend time with the Night Fury he named 'Toothless,' helping to nurse the dragon back to health after they had become friendly (the Doctor couldn't help but be impressed with the maverick ingenuity behind the boy's mind - that tail-fin, although primitive by the standards of later centuries because the materials were so perishable, was still impressive and sophisticated for its time).

At the same time the Doctor watched as Hiccup learnt quite a lot from the Night Fury and applied it to the Dragon training course, but unlike in the unaltered timeline where Hiccup had enjoyed the attention, he was a bit more cynical about it now, though Astrid was still suspicious of Hiccup's activities so that didn't change.

But one thing did change - the Doctor made sure to Design history so then after that small dragon settled on his lap, Hiccup would venture out to the Dragon's Nest to see what was different. He basically saw the Queen dragon a few days earlier than he would have done in the unaltered timeline.

What else did change, and the Doctor made sure of this, was that Hiccup's night flight with Astrid did not occur. The Time Lord didn't believe for one instant the romance was a true one - he felt that Astrid had become fond of Hiccup after seeing his true self, and that was it, but then romance was not something high on his list of things to understand. Instead, the Doctor Designed history so then Astrid saw the Night Fury while in hiding while Hiccup was making preparations to leave Berk, though he didn't go through with the plan to leave the island.

While the Doctor was reminded slightly of his own escape from Gallifrey, he felt it was more dramatic for Hiccup to escape when Astrid revealed the truth and when his Night Fury was attacked by the other villagers, Hiccup desperately revealed the truth of the nest before Stoick disowned him.

Instead of just leaving the teenagers behind, the Time Lord made sure a despondent and embarrassed and furious Stoick left with every able-bodied Viking on the island, and they went out to the nest to destroy it once and for all.

The Doctor also Designed history so then, instead of wallowing in self-pity for ages, Hiccup would spend a few moments thinking on his own before he decided to just rebel against Viking-kind on his own before grabbing one of the dragons from the arena and, after freeing the others of course, headed out to the nest.

There was no reconciliation with Stoick on the shore, the Doctor made sure of that and Designed time to make the boy rescue Toothless from that burning and sinking longship. Aside from what he Designed later, the Doctor basically left everything alone, except without the teenagers who'd helped him in the unaltered timeline, Hiccup was forced to fight against the Queen by himself otherwise events went the way they had in that timeline.

But the next big alteration to history came when the Doctor Designed history so then not only would Toothless avoid the initial damage that would lead to the destruction of his tail-fin prosthetic, but the next alteration came when, instead of not getting out of the way in the unaltered timeline, in this new outcome Hiccup would pull out of the dive that would kill the Queen. It was too late for the large dragon since the damage to its wings thanks to Toothless' blasts of fire had torn great rips in its wings that made it virtually impossible to stop it pulling out of the dive itself.

The altered timeline had Hiccup survive the Red Death with Toothless' tail-fin intact, so the boy didn't lose his leg this time. But there was no positive reconciliation from Stoick or from the other teens or villagers.

Using the telepathic circuits, the Doctor implanted a simple telepathic suggestion, _**"Maybe I should leave. Let them get on with their lives, and let me get on with mine. I've got nothing to hold me back - my 'father' disowned me, and the girl I thought I loved doesn't love me back. So why bother hanging around here anyway? Besides, if I go down there, they might just kill me. It's not a wonderful or comforting thought, but it's true. Maybe one day, yes, one day. I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back."**_

On the scanner, the Doctor watched as Hiccup left even when the Vikings on the ground called out to him, but the Doctor implanted another suggestion into their minds. _**"Find a ship that's reasonably intact, let them use that to return home. It should be okay for them to get through the fog and the pillars."**_

It didn't take long before Hiccup found a more or less intact ship, which was in far better condition than the other ships that littered the waters nearby that had drifted past the dragon's defences once their threat had been eliminated, and used Toothless to drag the ship back to the shore before he left unceremoniously with a brief wave.

The Doctor watched the timeline completely change from that point onwards. Not only would Hiccup leave the Barbaric Archipelago, but he also saw him visit other countries, and see things he would never have seen had he stayed behind. He watched on the scanner as Hiccup travelled to new countries that even Vikings like Gobber who had travelled extensively as a young man had never seen before, and he watched as Hiccup battled other similarly large dragons and human enemies across the world.

While the Doctor watched he didn't feel repentant for changing this boy's life completely. On the contrary, he felt he had done the boy a favour. By Designing Hiccup's timeline around the way it had, the Doctor had given the boy the chance to be someone new instead of him being tied down to Berk.

In any case, the boy was a kindred spirit if ever the Time Lord had seen one. It had just taken some work to ensure the boy became that kindred spirit but the Doctor would never feel bad about how he had done it.

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Author's Note - Designing time comes from a Doctor Who magazine where a renegade Time Lord not seen in the series alters the events of Kennedy's assassination.

Also, did you like the little quote from the First Doctor in how Hiccup promises himself he will return?


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